ST. MARTINVILLE — Some Louisiana ghost hunters are not ready to call a house they investigated in St. Martinville haunted just yet, but they are reporting one unexplained phenomenon.

On Jan. 5, the group Louisiana Spirits was called to investigate a house owned by Michelle and J.D. Kirkwood, which is one of the Olivier homes.

“We were very eager to investigate the Olivier house, especially after all of the strange happenings reported by the homeowners,” said Brad Duplechien, founder of Louisiana Spirits. “Such happenings included footsteps being heard upstairs, strange noises being heard and an upstairs door that opened on its own.”Duplechien said the first thing they did was try to “debunk” what the Kirkwoods were reporting to make sure there were no obvious explanations for what was thought to be paranormal activity.

“We enter each case neutral, yet once all logical explanations have been ruled out, then and only then do we look at the paranormal for our findings,” Duplechien said.

There were some things that had to be ruled out early in the investigation, Duplechien said.

“Being the home is quite old, the floors seemed to creak all the way on the other side of the house when someone would walk,” he said. “Also, on an older roof, the slightest sounds echoes, giving you the idea that someone could be walking around upstairs.”

Jennifer Broussard, another member of Louisiana Spirits, said the investigation that night was “pretty uneventful.”

“There were a couple of investigators who had some personal experiences, but at the end of the night, that’s all that is, personal experiences,” Broussard said.

Broussard said she hands out forms at the beginning of each investigation so members can write down their personal experiences. She said it is done this way so they do not feed off of one another’s experiences.

“We had (a group member) who wrote about noises from the vent in the living room and noises like someone had bumped the bed,” she said.

But, Duplechien said when they began to review the audio and video recordings days after the investigation, they all noticed something that could not be explained. He said they came across a distinct voice that was not their own.

“One of our investigators was doing audio work in an attempt to capture EVPs, or electronic voice phenomena,” he said.

“Our investigator was asking questions out loud. Nothing was heard at the time the question was asked, but when the audio recording was played back, you can hear a very loud and distinct “No” from an unknown individual.”

Duplechien expects to upload that recording to the group’s Web site, www.laspirits.com, in the coming days. And, despite capturing that recording during their investigation, he said they are not ready to call the home haunted. He said they are, however, planning a follow-up investigation in the near future. full story